Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!uwmcsd1!marque!introl!tim
From: tim@introl.uucp (Tim Chase)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: A suggestion: .... == ../../..
Message-ID: <369@inta1.UUCP>
Date: 23 Apr 88 21:01:52 GMT
References: <13087@brl-adm.ARPA>
Organization: Introl Corp. Milwaukee, WI
Lines: 23

In article <13087@brl-adm.ARPA> rbj@icst-cmr.arpa (Root Boy Jim) writes:
>Not so! While `.' could possibly be removed from the file system (but then
>how would you remove a file called `-r'), the kernel has only partial

You could still use "rm ./-r".  I believe the system from which I am
posting this (an Apollo 3010) doesn't have "." and ".." in the file
system, but they (. and ..) seem to work as expected in all cases (so
far).

>knowledge of `..'. All it knows is when to manipulate it in special cases,
>such as mkdir, rmdir, and rename; and when to treat it specially, at
>mount points, the root, and when chroot'ed.

Exactly.  Now that the kernel is giving semantics to those filenames,
it seems that those names don't really have to appear anywhere.
Certainly there's no "/" lying around.  I'm not advocating removing
them, though, just pointing out that it is possible to.  I still like
the illusion of "everyting's in the file system and the kernel doesn't
care what names you place there.


-- 
UUCP: {uunet,uwvax!uwmcsd1}!marque!introl!tim
Phone: +1 414 276-2937